Top stories around our network this week
Florida’s population of nearly 22 million is about 15 times as many as reside in Maine. Thus, it may be 15 times less important that wagering on sports betting apps arrived in the nation’s sparse northeastern tip Friday, while bettors in the decidedly more dense Eastern state 1,500 miles to the south are still on indefinite hold.
But any progress is good news to those in the sports betting industry. Where New England was not long ago mostly a desert for those wanting to place a sports bet, Maine’s launch with two online operators, DraftKings and Caesars Sportsbook, leaves just Vermont without legal sportsbooks – and regulators there are working to enable their launch by year’s end.
At the same time, it’s not all bad news for those wanting to engage in Florida sports betting. While it likely won’t be possible by phone or computer until federal and state court challenges are resolved – and no one knows how long that will take – the Seminole Tribe announced that in-person sports bets will be taken at its six Florida casinos starting next month. That’s in addition to the craps and roulette games the Seminoles will gain at their casinos through the compact with Florida, as those haven’t stirred the same controversy as the monopoly on digital sports betting the agreement provides to the tribe.
Amid this week’s developments in the two Atlantic Coast states, there’s been speculation of what will happen in nearly a dozen other states with no legal sports betting. Though you can’t actually bet on it, the sharpest money for the next legalization appears to be on Florida’s neighbor Georgia, as legislative specialist Jill R. Dorson ran down the list of non-legal states and assessed their chances for changing things next year.
You would be hard-pressed to find a better source of information about state-by-state developments than what Dorson and the rest of the staff provide, just as we broadly cover everything in the sports betting industry (as links below to this week’s stories show). And for additional gaming industry news, be sure to check out , including its weekly Double Down column and podcast.
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